INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD: NARRATIVES OF PERSISTENCE AND DESISTANCE

• Author: MONICA A. LONGMORE,WENDY D. MANNING,WENDI L. JOHNSON,PEGGY C. GIORDANO,MALLORY D. MINTER
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12073
• Date: 01 August 2015
• Published date: 01 August 2015

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN YOUNG

ADULTHOOD: NARRATIVES OF PERSISTENCE

AND DESISTANCE∗

PEGGY C. GIORDANO,1WENDI L. JOHNSON,2

WENDY D. MANNING,1MONICA A. LONGMORE,1

and MALLORY D. MINTER1

1Department of Sociology and Center for Family and Demographic Research,

Bowling Green State University

2Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice,

Oakland University

KEYWORDS: intimate partner violence, desistance, young adulthood

Prior research on patterns of intimate partner violence (IPV) has documented

changes over time, but few studies have focused directly on IPV desistance processes.

This analysis identifies unique features of IPV, providing a rationale for the focus

on this form of behavior cessation. We develop a life-course perspective on social

learning as a conceptual framework and draw on qualitative interviews (n =89)

elicited from a sample of young adults who participated in a larger longitudinal study

(Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study). The respondents’ backgrounds reflected a

range of persistence and desistance from IPV perpetration. Our analyses revealed that

relationship-based motivations and changes were central features of the narratives of

successful desisters, whether articulated as a stand-alone theme or in tandem with other

potential “hooks” for change. The analysis provides a counterpoint to individualistic

views of desistance processes, highlighting ways in which social experiences foster

attitude shifts and associated behavioral changes that respondents tied to this type of

behavior change. The analyses of persisters and those for whom change seemed to

be a work in progress provide points of contrast and highlight barriers that limit a

respondent’s desistance potential. We describe implications for theories of desistance

as well as for IPV prevention and intervention efforts.

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online Li-

brary at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2015.53.issue-3/issuetoc. This research was

supported by grants from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and

Human Development (HD036223, HD044206, and HD66087); the Department of Health and Hu-

man Services (5APRPA006009); the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S.

Department of Justice (Award Nos. 2009-IJ-CX-0503 and 2010-MU-MU-0031); and in part by the

Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, which has core

funding from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Devel-

opment (R24HD050959). The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed

in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the

official views of the U.S. Department of Justice or National Institutes of Health. We would like

to thank Rosemary Gartner, along with the anonymous reviewers, for very helpful comments and

advice on earlier drafts of this article. Direct correspondence to Peggy C. Giordano, Department

C2015 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12073

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 53 Number 3 330–365 2015 330

DESISTANCE AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE 331

Prior research on intimate partner violence (IPV) has most often focused on the onset

and persistence of this major public health problem. The emphasis on initial causes and

the recurrent nature of IPV is intuitive as this form of violence incurs heavy emotional

and physical costs to victims (Bonomi et al., 2006; Coker et al., 2002), repeat victimization

is common (Halpern et al., 2009), and criminal justice and other intervention efforts have

not proven uniformly successful (Capaldi and Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2012; Maxwell,

Garner, and Fagan, 2001). Yet as continued violence after initial onset is often thought

to be inevitable, studies have shown that cessation within a relationship does occur (Feld

and Straus, 1989; Whitaker, Le, and Niolon, 2010), and there is evidence of even greater

discontinuity across relationships (i.e., when the individual acquires a different partner)

(Capaldi, Shortt, and Crosby, 2003; Fritz and Slep, 2009). Furthermore, self-reports and

official statistics indicate that this behavior is strongly age graded, with peaks in adoles-

cence and young adulthood, and significant declines thereafter (Capaldi and Kim, 2007;

Halpern et al., 2009). Nevertheless, as theorizing and research on IPV has in general in-

creased exponentially in the last several decades, few studies have explored the process

of desisting from this form of violent behavior (Walker, Bowen, and Brown, 2013).

In this article, we argue that IPV has some unique features meriting investigation

apart from research about crime more generally (but see Felson and Lane, 2010), and

furthermore, we suggest that these distinctive elements are potentially important to an

understanding of desistance from this behavior. The current analysis focuses on IPV

perpetration, and draws on narratives about persistence and desistance elicited from a

sample (n=89) of young adult men and women who had participated in a larger longi-

tudinal study of adolescent and young adult relationship experiences (the Toledo Ado-

lescent Relationships Study [TARS]; n=1072). Recent analyses of aggregate trends in

IPV perpetration relying on the TARS data support the focus of this study on the young

adult period (Johnson et al., 2015). Young adulthood is a time of transition (Settersten

and Ray, 2010) during which rates of IPV are relatively high but declines in prevalence

are evidenced across the sample as a whole (see also Cui et al., 2013; Emery, Jolley, and

Wu, 2011). In light of the limited prior research on IPV desistance, a potentially useful

first step in theory building is to center on respondents’ own understandings about how

and why changes have occurred in this aspect of their lives (the desistance process) and

about why change may have proven difficult to accomplish (persistence). Our overall ob-

jective is thus to integrate, from a conceptual standpoint, what have developed as two

separate traditions (i.e., the IPV and desistance literatures). Within the area of IPV, re-

searchers relying on qualitative methods have focused primarily on active involvement

(see, e.g., Anderson and Umberson, 2001) and have not explored issues of change from

the perpetrator’s point of view. This study of “naturally occurring” desistance processes

may also be of interest to practitioners whose objectives are to bring about changes at the

individual and societal levels.

This analysis also has implications for more general theorizing about desistance pro-

cesses. First, we argue that understandings about pathways into IPV are often intimately

connected to understandings about pathways out. Thus, this analysis suggests the need

for additional scrutiny of the often-quoted assertion that what is important for criminal

of Sociology and Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University,

Bowling Green, OH 43403 (e-mail: pgiorda@bgsu.edu).

332 GIORDANO ET AL.

onset may be irrelevant to the dynamics involved in the cessation of these same behaviors

(Fagan, 1989). A second and related theme is that focusing on the unique features

of IPV suggests some limitations to the well-regarded “generality of deviance” notion

(Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1994), particularly as applied to understanding the mechanisms

involved in desistance. Thus, our analyses highlight that the narratives of IPV desis-

tance focus heavily on relationship-based changes that do not have an exact parallel in

movement away from other forms of violence or criminal behavior. Third, as Kazemian

(2012) recently noted, a key source of variation in theoretical treatments of desistance is

the emphasis on external versus internal forces (Carlsson, 2013; Farrall, 2005; Laub and

Sampson, 2003). The current study thus offers a new context for exploring the complex

interplay of structure and agency as influences on individual-level behavior change.

We develop a life-course perspective on social learning as a general framework and

conceptual counterpoint to the focus on external factors such as threat of jail (Fagan,

1989) and other life-event–centered conceptions of the mechanisms underlying criminal

desistance (Laub and Sampson, 2003). With reference to the IPV context, we argue that

the accumulation of experiences within intimate relationships may form the basis of a

learning curve that is likely to be important to an understanding of the cessation of this

form of behavior. Thus, even where major life events (e.g., becoming a parent) or ex-

ogenous shocks (e.g., jail) play a role, we argue that successful desistance will necessarily

encompass localized relationship-level motivations and changes. In exploring this idea

of a relationship learning curve and the role of other catalysts or “hooks” for change in

more detail, our goal is to document specific attitudinal changes (redefinitions) and be-

havioral adjustments (agentic moves) respondents tie to their patterns of successful IPV

desistance.

PRIOR RESEARCH ON IPV DESISTANCE

Early on, Feld and Straus (1989) pointed out that despite “well-entrenched beliefs

about the persistence of wife assault” (p. 144), even those studies of men arrested for

such offenses frequently showed relatively low rates of recidivism (e.g., Dutton, 1988;

Sherman and Berk, 1984). Feld and Straus’s (1989) own survey research also revealed

discontinuities in behavior across two waves of interviews, and as noted previously, prior

research has pointed to even greater discontinuity in IPV when individuals change part-

ners (Capaldi, Shortt, and Crosby, 2003; Whitaker, Le, and Niolon, 2010). A somewhat

narrow range of predictors of such changes over time has been examined. For example,

Whitaker, Le, and Niolon (2010) observed similar odds of continuation across gender,

Caetano et al. (2005) found that minority status was associated with greater odds, and the

frequency and severity of the initially observed violence has been linked to lower odds of

IPV cessation (Johnson, 2003; Quigley and Leonard, 1996).

Prior research has also examined the role of transition events, but most of this re-

search has been cross-sectional. Full-time employment is generally associated with lower

odds (Zweig, 2004), cohabitation relative to marriage seems to be a more risky union

status (Brown and Bulanda, 2008), and research has suggested that having children is

either not systematically related to variations in IPV or is associated with higher risk

(Brownridge, 2010; O’Donnell et al., 2009). In a recent longitudinal assessment of within-

individual variations in IPV perpetration relying on the TARS data, Johnson et al. (2015)

found that both movement into marriage and cohabitation were related to greater odds of